I'm enjoying the closeness that we're feeling as 2nd year med students. We are all facing the same challenge of balancing Boards studying with keeping up with coursework (somehow) while also being on the verge of something huge and unknown for all of us. I'm noticing that people are smiling to each other (even while they are swirling in the waves of stress and studying). Just today, 2 people who I didn't think knew my name, said Hi! to me today. I guess after over 1.5 years together, people recognize me as I recognize them. (even better b/c I don't know their names!)
What is this process that is happening? Are we all uniting because we are all in this same disorganized uncertain boat together? I am finding myself in a wonderful group of friends---something for which I hoped, but definitely something that I did not expect to develop. Med school is a weird world. Oftentimes, you don't know who are truly your friends and who are just "using you" or who will be worth the investment. As I was co-studying for Boards with
one of my closest friends, Rich, it occurred to me: I cannot go back to a single period of time in my life and say, "Man, that was a great time." Perhaps that time is now? Sure, med school is awful. There are soooo many tears, so much stress, so much sleeplessness, so much caffeine, so much unhealthy habits, and so many uncomfortable experiences. But somehow, we go through this process together. We are going through something that our families, loved ones, husbands/boyfriends/partners/girlfriends don't understand. Unless you have been through it, you just don't get it. And yet we are getting through it together---individually, but together.
That's why I call co-studying----it is when you meet a friend and just study in the same proximity without talking to each other. We are sooo exhausted and none of us really WANT to study the umpteen million hours that are required to prepare for Step 1 of the Boards, but we know we have to do it. So, we have made ourselves "accountability buddies." It is the same concept as a running buddy---he keeps you going when you would really stop, and he keeps you accountable.
Over the years, I've recognized that I cannot look back on a single time period in my life that I looked back on with fondness. There have been moments, but nothing like a period of time that I can remember anything other than burning the candle at both ends. I have been working hard for years---going someplace in the future (med school), working towards school---doing well in high school so I could get to a good college so I could get to med school (and then all the graduate courses, working a full-time job and a part-time job), and then moving and working and moving...All of this upward moving always trying to get on to the next stage, the next step, working towards something bigger and better. Now, I'm realizing that maybe NOW is a good time. Sure it is a TON of work, and as I've said, med school is nothing close to comfortable. And not to mention having a business-traveling husband who spends weeks away at a time (not at all what we had planned), this has not been an easy time. Yet, as I was trying to write earlier about the closeness I'm feeling right now with my classmates, I think now might be a good time. Now might be a time I can look back on years from now and say, "Man, that was really hard, but I have some great memories, and I've made some life-long friends." I truly believe that---med school transforms you. It transforms your world-view. It influences every bit of you. It hurts. It is invigorating. It is amazing. It is overwhelming. It makes you feel completely 100% inadequate for most of the time. Someone else is always studying more and doing more and knowing more. Completely utterly inadequate---this is the message constantly given to us.
It definitely affects your ability to communicate and function with other humans. It is a beast. There have been so many times when I thought that going to medical school was the absolute worst idea EVER. Sometimes I still think that. Take Boards: we are studying for an exam that will have such little meaning in our clinical lives---but it is a necessary step.
Anyway, as this is not the most eloquent writing I've ever done, I'm going to go to bed. All week, I've been waking up around 5:30am and starting my day. Tomorrow I have my OSCE---it is the final exam of the primary skills class where we have our Standardized Patients. This is about the absolute LAST thing I feel like doing right now. All I want to do is study for Boards, and yet, I have to interact with a fake patient. Awesome--and get videotaped and graded on my skills, my interaction, and my documentation. I usually really enjoy these, though---except for this one which is 40% of our final grade, at least! Oh geeze. They love throwing random work on us.
And yet I still state: Maybe these are the good times? I can't even remember Christmas break---it is April 1st, and January 1st feels like MONTHS and MONTHS ago...Sigh...
Oh geeze, I have to turn to bed.
